The Light Between Oceans(107)

He looks behind him, where a full moon is edging its way into the sky like a counterweight on the twin horizon, heaved up by the dying sun. Every end is the beginning of something else. Little Christopher has been born into a world Tom could never have imagined. Perhaps he’ll be spared a war, this boy? Lucy-Grace, too, belongs to a future Tom can only guess at. If she can love her son half as well as Isabel loved her, the boy will be all right.

There are still more days to travel in this life. And he knows that the man who makes the journey has been shaped by every day and every person along the way. Scars are just another kind of memory. Isabel is part of him, wherever she is, just like the war and the light and the ocean. Soon enough the days will close over their lives, the grass will grow over their graves, until their story is just an unvisited headstone.

He watches the ocean surrender to night, knowing that the light will reappear.





Acknowledgements




This book has many midwives. So many people have played a part in bringing it into the world that to name them individually would take a separate volume. I have, I hope, thanked them in person along the way, but would like to acknowledge their importance again here. Each has contributed something unique and invaluable: some at a specific moment; some over a long period; some over a lifetime.

Thank you – each and every one of you – for helping me tell this story. I am blessed by your kindness.





About the Author

M. L. Stedman was born and raised in Western Australia, and now lives in London. The Light Between Oceans is her first novel and is due to be published in twenty territories.